A play about the clash between old-school feminism and a female tea party-esque presidential candidate should resonate particularly well during this highly polarized election season. But George Brant's 2011 black comedy, "Grizzly Mama," now in its local premiere with Rivendell Theatre Ensemble, feels curiously flatfooted at times — and not just because Sarah Palin, the obvious real-life model for the play's gun-totin', straight-shootin', final-g droppin' Patty Turnbeck, is practically invisible on the national stage now that a male candidate has stolen her incendiary-rhetoric thunder.

Brant's play does get a zestful production with director Megan Carney and a crackerjack trio of actors. They all wring laughs from the over-the-top material (well, at least until darker hues take over). And Brant's premise has promise, particularly when it focuses less on the politics and more on the personal.

Deb (Tara Mallen) is a divorced "soccer mom" and daughter of a now-deceased second wave feminist icon. Her late mother's book, "The Female Judas," took particular umbrage at women who (like the recently deceased Phyllis Schlafly) advocated patriarchal norms. Deb has moved her teenage daughter, Hannah (Taylor Blim), to a cabin on a lake in Alaska — right next door to Turnbeck's family. Turnbeck, in addition to making a run for national office, has also penned her own tome — an homage to "family values" called "Grizzly Mama."

It soon becomes obvious that Deb has turned into a vengeful suburban guerrilla — the midlife version of Valerie Solanas, author of "The SCUM Manifesto" and the would-be assassin of Andy Warhol. When her early attempts to poison Turnbeck go awry, she starts planning what some would call "Second Amendment solutions."

Problem is, Turnbeck's own spirited daughter, Laurel (Jenna Ebersberger), likes Hannah. And Laurel has a big — and growing — problem of her own that requires sympathetic intervention from Deb.

In essence, there's a schizophrenic quality to Brant's piece. Part of it is a heartfelt reckoning between mothers and daughters. Deb feels that her conventional life choices betrayed her mother's radical feminism, while Laurel fears her mother's wrath about straying from the radical right-wing path.

The other half of Brant's play — and the part which dominates the first act — sends up every red state trope imaginable. Hannah complains that her high school offers "AP Intelligent Design" and that the radio only plays "moose calls and Toby Keith," while Deb acquires a high-powered rifle — with a handgun thrown in by the accommodating gun shop owner.

But Brant's script never thoroughly convinced me that level-headed Hannah would go along with her mother's radical plot, no matter how much Mom tries to make it seem like just another mother-daughter camping trip. Yes, Deb has cut off the internet and nuked Hannah's cellphone in the microwave — but the kid isn't being home schooled. Surely she could find some way of reaching out to her dad back in the lower 48 if she really wanted to.

That believability factor is a fairly big impediment to investing in these characters. Since we only meet Patty Turnbeck through snippets on the radio, where she delivers lines such as "a fetus is just a friend we haven't met," Deb and Brant are both taking aim at a cartoon villain. However, Mallen does a great job at capturing Deb's in-over-her-head desperation. Like Solanas, she seems like a woman who wants to belong somewhere, but has never figured out how to live without approval from someone else.

There's also a funny running gag wherein Deb responds to every description of her as "old" from Laurel and Hannah with "I'm 42!" I'm pretty sure every mother of a teenager can relate to that. And certainly many of us can relate to Deb's belief that she never became the person her mother wanted her to be.

As I'm sure I've noted many times before, few companies in town center the lives and experiences of teenage girls as well as Rivendell. That holds true in "Grizzly Mama" as well. Both Brant's script and the supple performances of Blim and Ebersberger add bittersweet realistic notes. These two girls who are isolated from their usual worlds for different reasons find solace in each other.

That's the real emotional center in a play that sometimes swirls too abruptly from sharp-elbowed political diatribes to quieter moments of connection and reflection. To heck with the grizzly mamas — it's the cubs who matter here.